Race‐ing, Classing and Gendering Racialized Women's Participation in Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The number of racialized women entrepreneurs has grown exponentially in recent years. Despite this growing trend, these businesswomen are more likely to operate on a small scale; their labour‐intensive businesses are characterized by low profits and limited mobility. Two fields of research attempt to illuminate — albeit problematically — the complexity of this phenomenon. Research on ethnic/immigrant entrepreneurs underestimates the experiences of racialized women who are entrepreneurs in their own right. Meanwhile the literature on women's entrepreneurship essentializes and homogenizes women's entrepreneurship. Research approaching women's entrepreneurship using an intersectional approach is scanty. In this paper, I draw on empirical evidence from a qualitative study with women entrepreneurs of Afro‐Caribbean descent. To provide a more nuanced understanding of racialized women entrepreneurs' experiences as entrepreneurs, I use Dill and Zambrana's intersectional/interlocking systems of oppression framework, examining processes of gendering, classing and racialization within four domains: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal. Despite processes of differentiation, participants found creative and subversive ways to resist these processes.

A Web of opportunity or the same old story? Women digital entrepreneurs and intersectionality theory

“…There are, however, a number of exceptions wherein intersectional perspectives interrogate the simultaneous impacts of race/ethnicity, gender, class and religion on entrepreneurship, in various combinations (Essers et al, 2010;Forson, 2006Forson, , 2013Knight, 2014). Such studies focus upon gender, race/ethnicity and class as 2 relevant to entrepreneurship given their centrality to positions within social hierarchies and !…”

Sensuality as Subversion: Doing Masculinity with Chinese Australian Professionals

“…In examining the processes of presenting and relating in the cases of Teck and Jay in particular, the analysis demonstrated the intersection of occupation and class in their attempts to perform subversive masculinities (Acker, 2012;Holvino, 2010;Knight, 2016;Scully and Blake-Beard, 2005). The professionals in the study suggested that the practice of sensuality is in many ways most readily acquired by and associated with the educated, moneyed classes.…”

‘We were fighting for our place’: Resisting gender knowledge regimes through feminist knowledge network formation

“…The discipline of entrepreneurship in particular has centred upon heroic entrepreneurs, nearly always men, white and eventually, rich from their entrepreneurial activity (Verduijn & Essers, ), shaping the hegemonic image of the entrepreneur in policy and popular culture (Jones & Spicer, ). Feminist scholarship counters this established conceptualization: first, the study of women entrepreneurs has emphasized the diversity of women engaged in entrepreneurial activity (Knight, ). Second, critical feminist work has explored and critiqued the patriarchal gendering of the phenomenon, as well as the discipline of entrepreneurship studies itself (Ahl & Marlow, ; Calás, Smircich, & Bourne, ).…”

“…and popular culture (Jones & Spicer, 2009). Feminist scholarship counters this established conceptualization: first, the study of women entrepreneurs has emphasized the diversity of women engaged in entrepreneurial activity (Knight, 2016). Second, critical feminist work has explored and critiqued the patriarchal gendering of the phenomenon, as well as the discipline of entrepreneurship studies itself (Ahl & Marlow, 2012;Calás, Smircich, & Bourne, 2009).…”